In today's world, computer interfaces employ GUIs (graphical user interfaces) created by programmers. To use these, a user must remember what each cryptic icon means and memorize the tree structure interface. A user can write notes about the interface to help remind them how to use the program and more specifically how to solve a particular task with the program. But the notes or reference books are separate from the program. It is this separation that makes the documentation not as helpful as the user would like.
Furthermore, there are large segments of the population who are not comfortable with computers as they exist today, and either do not use them to the level they might, or refuse to use them because of perceived complexity or other factors. The closest many people come to a computer is an ATM machine, which often employs a touch screen, widely regarded as the one of the most intuitive of conventional computer interface approaches. We know of no system, which is both simplified and variable in a manner, somewhat like a touch screen, while at the same time operating using innately familiar methods and materials, as does the invention.
Previous inventions by the inventors described an invention having some features of a touch screen, which uses a TV camera to view pages of a book. The instant invention carries this forward in new and useful ways. A search of other patents and applications having these components has turned up no prior art, which directly applies. One peripherally applicable prior art reference, which uses a touch pad and a paperboard, is Chan, U.S. Pat. No. 5,088,928. Another application, in which a TV camera takes a picture of a persons face to insert in a board game, is Ali, US Patent application publication 20030100363.